Thick Black Theory: A Symbiont Wars Book (Symbiont Wars Universe) Read online

  Brian took Bernard’s hand. “Thank you. Kaitlin is precious to us.”

  Bernard smiled. “She failed to mention that she’s always come through for me too.”

  “I’m not surprised by that at all.” Brian smiled the lopsided grin that Kaitlin had missed. She reached over and squeezed his arm then waved towards Drew. “Brian, that’s Drew and the guy coming down the ramp is Daniels. We rode with them from Dallas to the Mexican border at Lake Amistad. We’ve survived some action together.”

  Brian smiled and held out his hand. Drew returned the smile and shook his hand. Daniels, arriving later, just nodded.

  “Your ride is waiting at the sidewalk,” Brian said, “Let’s go get you loaded up.”

  “You aren’t coming with us?”

  “Marlee is, but I need to stay overnight for a meeting in the morning. I’ll catch a ride to Sun Sea with Mister Daniels tomorrow evening.”

  Kaitlin’s eyes flicked to Daniels. “So you’re leaving us too?”

  Daniels nodded. “I have my orders.”

  Kaitlin shrugged and turned, flanking Bernard and the weapons case. Marlee had Marian well in hand, listening to her chatter and exclaiming as Marian told her about the plane ride.

  “Let’s go then,” Kaitlin said. “Maid Marian, would you stick close to Marlee, please? I’ll be right behind you talking with Bernard and Brian.” She held her left hand out to Brian, positioning him to block access to the weapons on the left in case anyone tried to hijack them on their way out of the airport. Drew and Daniels brought up the rear.

  They made their way through the terminal, threading through clumps of passengers and airport personnel and out the automatic doors to the sidewalk where people were hailing taxis and waving to friends or family who were there to pick them up.

  Marlee, still holding Marian’s hand, led them down the sidewalk toward a sand-colored SUV where a tall black girl with her hair twisted into dreadlocks stood waiting for them. Someone else, a male from the shoulder width, sat in the driver’s seat, tapping his hand on the door in time to the Brazilian music playing on the sound system.

  Kaitlin, handed her backpack to Brian and pulled out Promisekeeper, snugged in her holster. She flipped the belt around her waist and fastened it as they neared the car.

  She heard a noise behind her and spun. Before she even realized there was a problem, Promisekeeper appeared in her hand and her thumb took the safety off as she slapped the trigger back with her right hand. “What the fuck, Daniels!” she yelled. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

  Daniels stopped where he was. He’d taken three quick steps up behind her without saying anything to alert them to an outside threat.

  “Marlee, get Marian down behind a car, now,” Kaitlin snapped. “Bernard?”

  “Covering your six, Sheriff.”

  “Kaitlin?” said Brian.

  “I don’t know, Brian. Take cover.”

  Still facing Daniels, she slowly raised Promisekeeper’s business end to the sky. “Explain yourself, Mister Daniels,” she said. “But don’t take another step forward.”

  Drew was still several steps behind Daniels. His eyes were wide with shock.

  He has no idea what is going on either.

  “I’m sorry, Mister Handy,” Daniels said. “I can’t allow those weapons to leave my custody. I have to follow rules with our ordinance.”

  Kaitlin’s jaw clenched so hard it almost cramped. “This is just stupidity gone to seed,” she snarled. “You should have thought about that before you suggested we leave our rifles with Austin back in Comstock. I have my own rules to follow and they don’t include letting myself be disarmed when I’m responsible for the safety of the people around me. That scared little girl over there behind the car in particular.”

  Daniels frowned. “I only suggested that because I judged it the best option if we had to fight through the militia at the boat ramps.”

  “And that was right, but it doesn’t mean you can renege now. When you return our rifles or the equivalent, you can have the guns back; otherwise you can go pound sand.”

  “Are you prepared to shoot me, little girl?” Daniels said, glaring at her.

  “Oh, so this is personal, then.” Kaitlin let a hard smile come to her lips. “You aren’t very quick on the uptake, are you, Just Daniels? If you were, you would already know the answer to that question. I can’t let you have these weapons because doing that would compromise my most important mission, which is to take care of Marian. I am disappointed in you for not valuing that. Now Amber and Ayleana, I feel I can trust. They were focused on taking care of people, but all you want is to make sure your gun inventory is clean so you can head to barracks. I could shoot you and feel no worse about it than being sorry you were stupid enough to play in traffic, but I’m not going to.”

  Kaitlin pushed the safety closed on Promisekeeper and lowered the hammer. “I’m not letting you have the guns, but I’m not going to shoot you either, because I’m honoring the offer of alliance Ayleana made when she asked me to serve as sheriff and told me to shoot people that needed it. To me that means she gave me responsibility. Now, since that conflicts with what you are doing, it seems reasonable to me that you are overstepping your authority. As far as I know—all she told you to do was pick me up and get me to Sun Sea Farm, but now you are cutting out early when you never would have made it here without our help.”

  She paused. “Did I leave anything out, Bernard?”

  “I can’t fault your logic, Sheriff,” Bernard said. “But I expect logic isn’t what’s going to win the day.”

  Kaitlin sighed. “Daniels, why don’t you just call Ayleana or Amber and tell them the situation?”

  “They aren’t available,” Daniels snapped. “Nobody is available, and I’m the one in the field. It’s my decision.”

  “Bernard, if he goes for the concealed carry on his left calf, shoot him in the leg. Drew, I suggest you get out of the line of fire.”

  Drew scrambled sideways, and Kaitlin handed Promisekeeper to Bernard and turned to face Daniels. “You know, Ayleana thought I would like you. Have you changed since the shit hit the fan? I think she’d be disappointed.”

  “Just give me the fucking crate,” Daniels said.

  “I already said no.”

  This was it. Either he would back off, seeing she meant to fight, or he would come ahead. She knew he was tough, some sort of Special Forces in his past, but she could get lucky. She knew he wasn’t taking her seriously, and she had years of solid martial arts from dojos that weren’t about selling colored belts. Also, shooting wasn’t the only thing Jordan and Greg had worked on helping her improve.

  Daniels took two steps forward and reached past Kaitlin for the handle of the crate.

  Kaitlin punched her right knee into his thigh, feeling her kneecap push past his muscles and into the bone while his foot was wedged solidly on the ground. She dropped her foot back and brought her other knee up hard to his solar plexus, hooking her hands behind his arms, so she could hammer him with her knee, but he managed to protect himself and break away before she could finish the series of strikes.

  Her instincts told her to go in hard while his leg would still be knotted up from the first strike, but she had to give him a chance to stop now before this fight got uglier. “I’m hoping you’ll see reason, now that you know I’m serious.”

  “You have some skills,” Daniels said, favoring his left leg. “But that just means I may have to hurt you to accomplish what I need to do.”

  Kaitlin took a breath. That meant she had to move. He wouldn’t be putting weight on his leg for a while, sweeping it was the obvious strategy. She put a hand down that would give her a pivot for a low sweep. Daniels, using his good leg, lunged forward to grapple and take her to the ground.

  But instead of sweeping, Kaitlin flipped upwards off the hand and twisted to come down on his shoulders with her knees as he dove forward. Her weight drove his face into the sidewalk, and Kaitlin ramm
ed her right hand down on the back of his head as he struggled to rise. His head connected with the sidewalk again, but he’d braced this time and the knockout she’d hoped for didn’t happen.

  Daniels pivoted, throwing a brutal switch, bringing his elbow around to connect with her arm, but Kaitlin let the arm go limp and threw it up and out to clear it then danced away before he could finish the move and reverse their positions.

  As he came to his feet again, face bloody but still determined, she circled left, to see if she could keep his injured leg to the rear and reduce his mobility. He kept up with her circling though it seemed he was working hard to do it. She noted a grim smiling micro expression flicker across his face.

  He’s faking it. He’s almost recovered from the first strike.

  This was not good. Now her advantage had evaporated. He wasn’t going to hold back any more either. She heard Marian crying, but narrowed her focus to the fight.

  Thick face, black heart.

  Turning to hide her left side, she worked the dogwood kubotan from its hiding place in the sleeve of her hoodie and into her fist. She’d need to get inside his guard. The risk was huge, but she danced closer.

  Daniels came at her with a rush, both legs working now. Instead of dancing away, Kaitlin stepped into him with a knee aimed at his groin. She was surprised that she actually connected. But the strike wasn’t clean. He turned at the last instant, deflecting most of the force of the strike to the muscle of his inner thigh as he wrapped his arms around her shoulder and neck. Kaitlin turned sideways and jammed the kubotan into his groin as his arm fought for a sleeper hold on her neck. The blow froze him for an instant and his arm lost its purchase.

  Kaitlin threw her all-or-nothing trick move. Easy to avoid, if only you knew it was coming, but she was sure none of the military self-defense instructors he’d ever known had the flexibility required.

  She thrust her right leg backwards and contracted her butt muscle, snapping her foot up behind her back hard to connect with his head. The impact-grade plastic stud—about the size of a quarter at the base—that she’d installed on the heels of her Docs slammed into the back of his skull, and he melted boneless to the sidewalk, landing on his back.

  Pivoting into him and using her weight, Kaitlin sunk her right fist deep into his solar plexus. The air left his lungs in a whoosh. Kaitlin jumped back, but Daniels wasn’t moving, not even to groan and fight for the air to come back into his lungs. He was unconscious... at the very least.

  Hopefully still alive.

  The only thing she regretted was that she felt more triumph than worry about his condition.

  You are a mean person, Kaitlin Sannhetsdottir.

  He’d left her no nice options.

  “Brian, can you call an ambulance? You may have to find another driver tomorrow.”

  She turned to look at him. Brian’s mouth was gaping, but he nodded and pulled out his phone.

  Kaitlin turned to the tall, black girl and was surprised to see a grin on her face. “Still driving us to the Sun Sea place then?”

  “Right this way,” said the girl, turning to open the rear of the SUV. “You can store the case back here, sir,” she said to Bernard, her voice lilting with the music of Jamaica.

  Kaitlin turned to Marlee—still crouched behind the bumper. “Marlee, can you put Marian in the middle of the two of us? Thanks for watching out for her just now.”

  Marlee stood and helped Marian up.

  “Everything okay, Maid Marian?” Kaitlin asked.

  “Yes, except my drawings got wrinkled.” Marian looked over the car to where Brian was checking Daniels for a pulse and talking into his phone. “Was Just Daniels a bad man, Mommy?”

  “No, sweetheart. It was only a misunderstanding, and he made a choice I couldn’t allow. He’ll be all right. Get in the car with Marlee. I’ll be right there.”

  She called me Mommy?

  She didn’t have time to think about that now.

  Bernard crossed behind Kaitlin with the crate.

  “You got that, Bernard?” she said, taking Promisekeeper from his shoulder and putting the belt back around her waist.

  “I got it, Sheriff. You can take care of Marian.”

  “Thanks. Break out one of the bullpups, and when I get inside, I’ll pass it to the middle seat for you.”

  She looked up to see the driver, a stocky, youngish Amerindian, standing beside the car and staring at her.

  “Are you good with this?” she said.

  He seemed to shake himself. “No problems, but why does he call you sheriff?”

  “I’ve been wondering that too,” Marlee said, climbing into the back seat.

  “It’s because she’s a duly elected, territorial sheriff, who’s been serving that appointment well and faithfully since the collapse of the US government. Why don’t people get that?” said Bernard with heat.

  “Probably because my badge is hidden by my hoodie, I think, Bernard.”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” said the driver. “But I think maybe the guy with the mission laying on the sidewalk over there gets it now.”

  “About damned time,” said Bernard coming around the car and holding the door for Kaitlin.

  Chapter 36 — Sun and Sea

  Headed east from Puerto Peñasco, coastal civilization disappeared like a puff of smoke, to be replaced by the rolling western Sonora, an alien world with terrain dotted by hills and arroyos.

  Their driver—street name Razor—paid most of his attention to the road, but Kaitlin noted that he scanned the surroundings as they went.

  Watching for ambush, but he doesn’t seem too worried.

  She’d soon taken her holster off and draped the belt across the headrest in front of her. It would make Promisekeeper easier to get to anyhow.

  Marian relaxed her stranglehold on Kaitlin’s arm after a few kilometers, but stayed snuggled into her side. Calypso, the girl from Jamaica, kept up a stream of chatter as she passed road food to the back—three-bean salad, sprouted-grain tortilla wraps filled with tofu, tomato and black beans—fresh from the farm. With each description, she waved an offering, enticing Marian with all the yummiest bits.

  Kaitlin said yes to all the choices and worked through the food, chewing each bite at least twenty times. It wasn’t easy to put on muscle the way her metabolism was roaring these days, but she was determined to try.

  The SUV was armored, like a little brother to the one they’d left in Comstock. Though it didn’t have an observation bubble, it did have a big moon roof opening so you could fire from partial cover. The landscape whipped by as they flew along a dirt road that cut across country in a near-straight line. Because of the dust, they kept the windows up and the air-conditioning on, though the temperature outside was temperate as evening approached. Occasional chain-link fenced enclosures appeared every couple of kilometers protecting something that looked like a wellhead and a wind turbine.

  “What are they pumping at these stations?” she said.

  “They be pumping the sea,” Calypso said with a laugh. “You can’t have a Sun Sea Farm without the sea.”

  Kaitlin nodded.

  This should be interesting.

  ∆ ∆ ∆

  The shadow of the SUV had just started to show in front of them when a spot of light appeared on the eastern horizon like a bright star.

  Sun, Sea...

  “A solar power station?” Kaitlin said.

  “Either that or the baby Jesus has been born again somewhere over that way,” Razor said.

  Kaitlin couldn’t see if he was smiling from where she sat, but his voice sounded like he was.

  “How long you spend thinking of that?” Calypso said, smacking him on the arm.

  “Geez, Caly! Right on the bruise from roda this morning.”

  Calypso turned to Kaitlin. “Boys, they so fragile.” She turned back around and poked Razor’s arm with a stiff finger. “You don’t hear Sheriff Kaitlin whinin’ ‘bout bruises. And, ya know that dust up on th
e sidewalk back there made roda today look like a kiddie ride. Besides, I like that bruise. I be thinkin’ it’s my tag on you.”

  “Are you hurt anywhere, Kaitlin?” Marlee said, “I should’ve asked before.”

  “No, nothing much to report on.” Though, in fact, her neck had collected some sore spots, but she wasn’t about to whine about it now.

  “I have a lot of questions about your power systems at the farm,” said Bernard.

  “Well, I think we have an information brochure ‘round here somewhere,” said Calypso, opening the glove compartment and digging through it. “Nope,” she said, slamming the lid down. “But I’m sure them folks in facilities have plenty for you to read. They know everything there is to know ‘bout the workins.”

  Kaitlin patted Bernard on the shoulder. “It would just frustrate you, getting some of the information and not the whole picture. You’ll have time.”

  Bernard chuckled. “You’re right, of course. Thank you, that’s just what Bernice would have said.”

  Kaitlin winced and squeezed his shoulder.

  The blazing star grew closer and brighter. Another kilometer brought them to a bold-yellow guardrail that framed a right-hand bend in the road that dropped them about ten meters then cut left into a sand-colored parking lot. The lot had a modest sign: Welcome to the Sun Sea Community. But the solar tower, the sea of mirrors, the six-meter-high greenhouses that stretched at least thirty meters to the east and the acres of water spread around them in aquaculture ponds and pools overwhelmed the community aspect of the farm.

  Kaitlin almost missed the dwellings—shaded from the sun by the northeast side of the ten-meter cliff they’d circled as they’d descended to the lot.

  “Wow!” Marian’s quiet whisper summed it up for Kaitlin too.

  Marian tugged on Kaitlin’s arm. “Can we go swimming?”

  Kaitlin looked at Marlee, echoing the question. She could see a lifeguard’s chair at one of the pools, but no one was in the water. “We’ll ask,” she said, seeing that Marlee had missed the question because she was getting her bag together to get out.